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SECRECY - A BASIC COMPONENT OF THE POLICY OF TORTURE

"SECRECY is a basic component of the Policy of Torture: It is essential to the structure of torture that everything takes place in secret, in the dark, beyond consideration of shame or account.
When the torturer assures his victim ' no one will ever know' , he is at once working to break the victim's spirit and bolster his own".
From "Settling accounts with torturers"-LawrenceWelsher

Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security (SECU) - House of Canada

Squeezed Out of the Country-Iacobucci Report-Almalki speaks about his torture in Syria - CSIS/RCMP

WHAT IS TORTURE?

Torture is universally accepted as:

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions".

(Article 1 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1988).

Specifically, for an act to be considered as torture, all of the following elements must be present:The act must have caused severe pain or suffering;

It must have been inflicted by or on behalf of or at the consent of a public official (such as the police or security forces);

It must have been committed for a specific purpose, such as to elicit a confession to a crime or to instil fear.

The Trauma of Psychological Torture - Almerindo E. Ojeda ed. - Book

Psychological torture- the "No-Touch Torture": a set of practices used worldwide to inflict pain or suffering with deniability , leaving no evidence of physical violence. It includes the use of mind-altering drugs and threats of violence—as well as the exploitation of personal or cultural phobias, sleep deprivation, sensory disorientation, forced self-induced pain, solitary confinement, mock execution, severe humiliation and more. For more information visit :

University of California Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights

The UCDavis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA) and the UCDavis Center for Mind and Brain (CMB) have initiated a collaboration to investigate the neurobiology of psychological torture: The Neurobiology of Psychological Torture.

Torture as Government Policy, Cases , Documentaries, Country Involvement

Real People , real lives: Those "INDIRECTLY TORTURED" by RCMP and CSIS

RFHall students and staff join the Caravan to End Torture in October 2008

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

March 8th, 2010 marked the centennial of International Women's Day. In 2010, and every year, millions of women are raped by employers and colleagues, soldiers and members of armed groups, by partners, relatives, friends and strangers . (Amnesty International data) (HERE)
Amnesty International reminds us that violence against women and girls is a global pandemic.
Still nowadays, at least one out of every three women has been beaten, forced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime.
The origin of International Women's Day (IWD) is firmly rooted in the labour movement and the struggle for justice and equality.